Just interested to know whether any kids you have or know like/are interested in poetry or keats.
also does anyone feel that any of his poetry isnt relevant or not suitable of pre teens in particular?
to get the ball rolling my 5 year old little girl loves 'song about myself' and 'two or three posies'. they make her laugh.
She also sometimes like me to read her 'to autumn' at bedtime.
She asks for 'the story of the river and the trees please'.
She obviously doesnt understand most of it but i think she must find the imagery soothing.

Ah, that's nice - I'll get one for myself Would love to see a graphic novel on the Scotch tour, made into a burlesque with a bit o' cockney slapstick thrown in for good measure.. Alas, very small market for that sort of thing, I'm afraid!

When she was 12 my daughter surprised me with a most wonderful surprise birth day present.she had completely thought up herself.
Knowing my love for Keats she had learned the whole Ode to Autumn by heart and recited it for me.
This ended up also the beginning of her own love for Keats and many other great poets.

korenbloem wrote:When she was 12 my daughter surprised me with a most wonderful surprise birth day present.she had completely thought up herself.Knowing my love for Keats she had learned the whole Ode to Autumn by heart and recited it for me. This ended up also the beginning of her own love for Keats and many other great poets.

Nice to meet you, by the way, korenbloem. What a great gift! I'll start dropping hints now, as my oldest son will be turning 13 this next summer...

"I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the Truth of Imagination."

Thanks to our two daughters I really got poetry. I think we started with a Childs Treasury of Verse, and over the years worked through all the obvious writers who pile rhyme and meter high. The benefits are enormous, and felt on so many levels.

i love song to myself i used to take a literature class when i was 13 ( having never heard of keats) and i used to love its rhythm..

when i was young my father used to tell me tales of Greek gods - i think thats where i got a certain love for Hellenistic and Classical-inspired works of art.. so thats idea for parents who want to introduce a general idea of keats

also, when i have kids of my own i plan to tell them all about the belle dame sans merci as a bedtime story

If you read "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" to your young kids someday, it might just scare them!

"Come... dry your eyes, for you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly. Dry your eyes... and let's go home."